Friday, April 20, 2012

In
September 2011, the British journal “Antiquity” reported
that Google Earth had revealed gigantic 5000-year-old mounds in
Peru that were shaped like animals, but it took several more months,
until late March 2012, before the mainstream media reported on
these discoveries.
Google Earth is becoming more and more a favorite tool for archaeological
discoveries and has resulted in uncovering lost cities in the
Amazon, while it continues to be a favorite tool to identify enigmatic
structures in the Gobi Desert since they were announced in November
2011.
Massive geoglyphs in the shape of animals is nothing new to Peru:
dozens of them are depicted on the enigmatic Nazca lines, made
famous by Erich von Däniken when he argued that these geoglyphs
should be seen from the skies. At the time, hardly any research
had been done in these strange geoglyphs, but since, archaeologists
have identified they form part of a larger complex, which even
includes pyramids.
But Google Earth enabled the discovery of even larger depictions,
mounds in the shapes of birds like the duck and the giant condor,
a puma and even sea animals like an orca. As with the Nazca lines,
these objects are best to be seen for the sky, in evidence that
they were only discovered through Google Earth.
The duck mound was created by adding a head to a natural formation,
while a nearby circular mound is thought to represent an egg.
Most remarkable is that some of the mounds have been dated to
be as old as 5000 years old – 3000 BC, making them on par
with the pyramids of Caral in Northern Peru, dated to ca. 3200
BC. Whereas until recently, archaeologists were reluctant to date
anything in the country BC, all of a sudden 3000 years are added
to Peruvian history.
The man responsible for discovering and dating the mounds is University
of Missouri anthropology professor emeritus Robert Benfer. “I
had always noted that a very large structure just north of Lima
resembled a bird. But since there were supposedly no giant animal
effigy mounds in South America, I thought it couldn’t be
one,” Dr. Benfer said. Or how suppositions were once again
proven to be wrong!
The mounds range from 15 feet to 1300 feet long, spread out over
six valleys in coastal Peru, in fact, less than two miles from
the sea. The puma mound was found in El Paraiso, in the Chilca
Valley. ‘The finding of animal effigy mounds where there
were none before changes our conception of early Peruvian prehistory,’
Benfer said. ‘That they probably represent the Andean zodiac
is also a new find. A controversial interpretation of some Nazca
figures as representations of the zodiac is supported by these
mounds.’ Benfer argues that a mound in the shape of a condor
is aligned to the Milky Way when viewed from a nearby temple,
while the puma mound aligned with the June solstice when viewed
from the same temple. He notes that structures not only represented
the stars, but were also aligned with them. The discovery therefore
highlights once again that our ancestors were not only aware of
astronomy, but used it in bringing down the skies down to earth,
reminiscent of that hermetic saying “As Above, So Below”.
Unfortunately, Benfer immediately follows these important observations
by going for the all too common explanations so cherished by archaeologists,
claiming these designs would help the ancient Peruvians with farming
and fishing! “For example, knowing that December 21 had
passed was very important. If there was no sign of an El Niño
by then, fishers would know they would have another good year,
and farmers would face neither drought nor floods,” Benfer
said. It is clear that a farmer did not need such a complex system
to know the solstices and like. Far simpler designs could be created
for that. And the true reason as to why these structures were
built therefore will remain once again to be discovered.
Benfers’ work will not come as a surprise to Fernando and
Edgar Elorrieta Salazar. In 2003, these brothers identified various
animal forms in the hills and designs in and around Machu Picchu.
They discovered that the design of the capital Cuczo was equally
ingeniously created to form the image of a puma, the “royal
animal”. Many of these constructions were achieved by using
a mixture of natural shapes, which were then augmented –
“stressed” – by human intervention, often by
creating fields in very specific shapes. Creating fields is easier
than building huge mounds, but Machu Picchu and Cuzco are located
at high altitude, whereas the mounds are located near the coast.
Most important, however, is the realization that Peru’s
history continues to become more complex and older with almost
every new discovery made.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Some
weeks ago, I had the privilege to see the Cirque du Soleil’s
Immortal in the Staples’ Center in Los Angeles. The venue
has attained iconic status for Michael Jackson himself; it is
where he was practicing for his new world tour and the site of
his funeral service. A few weeks afterwards, we all learned about
the death of Whitney Houston, in her hotel room in the Beverley
Hills Hilton, the result of years of substance abuse.
My wife, Kathleen McGowan, in her third novel, The Poet Prince,
tackles the subject of “angelics”: people who were
born with highly gifted powers, especially in the arts, like the
Renaissance genius Filippo Lippi. But Lippi was so out of control
his master famously had to lock him up, so that he would actually
focus on his god-given talent: the arts. Kathleen highlighted
that many of these angelics have tremendous difficulty functioning
in this world, and quite often have great issues with sexual identity
and happiness in general. Part of their mind is never truly here.
Their talent is otherworldly and hard to adapt to this world.
In the case of Michael Jackson, one could definitely see him as
an angelic: a phenomenal talent in music, both writing and performing,
identified as special from the moment he was born, resulting in
a man whom the world never allowed to be fully functional or normal,
resulting in his early death, as even sleeping become something
he could not do without help. In the case of Whitney Houston,
it was an angelic voice, almost unlike anyone else, who equally
could not find happiness in this earthly realm.
Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston are but two of many people
that fall in this category. Many of them quite often feature on
the covers of tabloids, when they fall off the path that they
are expected to walk, though some are better at hiding it than
others.
The role of the angelic artist is to transport his audience to
another realm. At one point, the mere presence of Michael Jackson
was able to bring about hysteria in people. But watching the performance
of Immortal bore witness to the fact that this man, in death,
was able to inspire and transform the audience, sending a powerful
message and insights in his vision in a manner that had actually
become impossible during his lifetime, as everyone’s attention
was always preoccupied with the publicity treadmill he was at
the very center of and which neither he nor anyone else could
walk away from. But in death, all of this was transformed and
the messages that Michael Jackson wanted to send in the world,
could finally be set loose.
The messages of Michael Jackson, but in his lyrics and interviews,
were often powerful. What to make of statements that “my
goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive:
the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance”?
These are clearly the words of a man who understood his mission,
his talents, and his total allegiance to it – to the very
moment of his death, as can be seen in “This Is It”.
Some of his statements can seem simplistic at times, but reread
them and an extraordinary level of understanding rises to the
forefront: “Let us dream of tomorrow where we can truly
love from the soul, and know love as the ultimate truth at the
heart of all creation.”
Michael Jackson was named after the Prince of Angels, and he was
considered to be the King of Pop. The Guinness Book of Records
identifies him as the most successful entertainer of all time.
He described himself as the source through which the special power
flowed, but that the true creation came from the heavens. And
hence, Jackson identified himself as a true angelic, who are always
seen as enablers of the divine. They are neither of this world,
nor of the other world, but sitting restless in between both.
In ancient civilizations, it were the angelics that were trained
as they were closest to God and the gods and would be able to
create divine art the best and easiest. The difference in treatment
these angelics received in ancient times and today is probably
an apt visualization of the manner in which Mankind treats the
divine today.

Follow by Email

About Me

Philip Coppens is an author and investigative journalist, ranging from the world of politics to ancient history and mystery. He co-hosts The Spirit Revolution radio show with his wife Kathleen McGowan and is a frequent contributor to NEXUS Magazine and Atlantis Rising Magazine. Since 1995, he has lectured extensively and has appeared in a number of television and DVD documentaries, including Ancient Aliens: The Series (The History Channel). He is the author of nine English-language books, including The Stone Puzzle of Rosslyn Chapel, The New Pyramid Age, Servants of the Grail,Killing Kennedy, The Cryptogram of Rennes-le-Chateau, The Ancient Alien Question and The Lost Civilization Enigma.